cover by Adeline Goldminc-Tronzo, courtesy The Café Review Sometimes, it pays to leave your comfort zone. Last year, one of us was asked to interview a young German poet for a US poetry magazine. This week, a Q&A with Berlin poet Ron Winkler appeared in The Café Review. Find out more about Winkler here, and hear him read his work here. Listen auf Deutsch, and read it in Spanish, English, Turkish, Norwegian, Arabic or Farsi. Thank your lucky stars for translators, then try it in a language not your own.
Interview: Berlin Poet Ron Winkler
cover by Adeline Goldminc-Tronzo, courtesy The Café Review Sometimes, it pays to leave your comfort zone. Last year, one of us was asked to interview a young German poet for a US poetry magazine. This week, a Q&A with Berlin poet Ron Winkler appeared in The Café Review. Find out more about Winkler here, and hear him read his work here. Listen auf Deutsch, and read it in Spanish, English, Turkish, Norwegian, Arabic or Farsi. Thank your lucky stars for translators, then try it in a language not your own.
Love-Fest for Alice
photo by Jerry BakerAlice Munro began writing early: her first story was published in 1950, when she was only 19. She once said that books seemed, "to me to be magic, and I wanted to be part of the magic." All book-fans and aspiring writers know exactly what she means.
Borrowing the title of Munro's latest book, (Liebes Leben/Dear Life) German authors Judith Hermann and Manuela Reichert will present an homage to Munro on 28 Feb at Literature House Munich. They will discuss the life and work of the acclaimed Canadian, a master of the short story, with readings auf Deutsch from Munro's early book, Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You/ Was ich dir schon immer sagen wollte.
One-woman Story Factory
A young woman with a chair on her shoulder stands next to a tree (or if you have no imagination, a lamp with artificial leaves). She points out all she has on: overcoat, hat, shoes, suspenders, shirt and pants; lists all her possessions: old hanky, radio, chair, lamp, pear. These will become, in the course of an hour, the whole world and everything in it. The chair a mountain range; the lamp a woman, a tree, a growing child; the radio an iron; the hanky a loveless man.
Using her voice, her body and these paltry props, Carls tells the story of Einer, a man who had nothing, not even a name. Adapted from Christine Nöstlinger's book of the same name, Carls makes Einer's rough journey over the mountains -- the bone-chilling cold, the moaning wind, the fleeing birds -- so real, that you find yourself leaving your seat to stand with him on the slanting cliffs of snow, wondering what he's got you both into.
Local, but prized elsewhere...
English poet Simon Armitage may not have rescued Britain's reputation in Europe entirely last night, but he made a good start. His first words were an apology for his lack of German: "In fact, I apologize for my whole country's lack of German." With his wry humor and thoughtful answers to long and complex questions, Armitage made one thing very clear: he's a damn good Yorkshire cheese.
The tagline for the reading came from W.H. Auden: "A poet’s hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere." Both Armitage and German cheese, er, poet and translator, Jan Wagner, met in Munich's aptly-named Lyrik Kabinett, and talked about slant rhymes and dialects, the interest in poetry in their respective countries, and translating each other's work. Their amiable conversation, moderated by poet, scholar and translator, Heinrich Detering, kicked off the excellent series, Europäische Begegnungen, sponsored by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung.
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